Writing Retreat 2024 (1)

Posted on by Patrick
I'm sitting in the dark under a plastic palm tree, lit by Christmas lights, holding up a 1988 Canada Winter Olympics glass with about an ounce or so of Scotch whisky in it—cheers!

What did I bring to this year’s writ­ing retreat?

  • 12 Man­i­to­ba beers
  • 2 lap­tops
  • 2 cam­eras
  • 2 tripods
  • more food than I need
  • not the cof­fee grinder, whoops
  • my bike
  • an assort­ment of books
  • a hope that the fore­cast is incor­rect and at least one night will be cloud-free
6 cans of beer. Left to right: MacGuffin, Tepache Pineapple, Fort Garry Dark, Lamp Lighter, Blue Hills blueberry sour, Black Lager from Little Brown Jug
6 beers. Left to right: Dial Up Amber by Obsolete, Section 6 Honey, Farmery Ginger Beer, A Necessary Evil, Moon Lake dark ale, Irish Red by Nonsuch
Books, clockwise from top left: Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut Annihilator by Grant Morrison & Frazer Irving Rules for a Knight by Ethan Hawke The Poetic Edda translated by Lee M. Hollander The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka

And now I’m about to start cook­ing sup­per, fin­ish­ing off the quite bit­ter[1]At least it’s got cool can art, by GMB Chomichuk. A Nec­es­sary Evil (which is def­i­nite­ly an IPA), and plan­ning out tonight’s writ­ing. (Ghosts? You bet. Star­ships? Absolutely.)

Series: Writing Retreat 2024

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (1); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (2); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (3); Writ­ing Retreat 2024 (4); Writ­ing Retreat (5a — Milky Way); Writ­ing Retreat (5b — Auro­ra Bore­alis); Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2024: The End.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 At least it’s got cool can art, by GMB Chomichuk.